Category Archives: Environment

The future belongs to those who understand how to harness data to achieve radical new efficiencies in sustainability. And that future happens at VERGE Virtual. Join Joel Makower, along with presenters and panelists from The White House, C40, City of New York, USGBC, and many more for our firstVERGE Virtual event of 2014. This free event will explore how the growth of smart buildings and smart cities is enabling new services and revenue opportunities, along with new models for business engagement.

During this free event, you’ll see:

Illuminating keynotes on the people and technologies fueling innovation in smart buildings and smart cities.

“I encourage young people from across China and NSW to get involved in this exciting new initiative,” Mr Baird said.

“A new initiative will bring together 100 young innovators from China and match them with 100 bright young minds from Australia for a five-day innovation workshop as part of CAMP,” he said.

“This initiative reflects the essence behind theVivid Ideasprogram, which promotes ideas, discussion and debate.“Successful applicants will be asked to work together to consider challenges common to both countries before being given an opportunity to pitch their ideas to compete for grants, venture capital, and consideration in thePremier’s Innovation Initiative” Mr Baird said.

CAMP was recently recognised by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’sAustralia China Council (ACC) with a seed grant. ACC awarded funding to 33 projects in the new strategic priority areas of Education, Economic Diplomacy, Arts and Culture and Australian Studies in China.

“The China Australia Millennial Project is supported, among many other government and private sponsors, by the Australia-China Council as a new platform with significant potential to enable future champions of bilateral engagement to meet, build relationships and make practical contributions to Australia-China relations and broad global challenges”.

The Australia-China Council was established by the Australian Government to promote people-to-people connectivity between Australia and China.

Calls for expressions of interest from Chinese and Australian innovators aged 18 – 35 arenow openat www.australiachina.org. Express interest today or share this with those who might be keen to.

In its fifth Urban SOS student competition, AECOM seeks integrated design proposals that rehabilitate disused industrial and infrastructure sites in cities worldwide. Submissions should integrate urban, architectural, landscape, engineering, and environmental design to support the development of new industries, establish new centers of production, and strengthen the pre-existing urban fabric. Sites can be of any scale in any city worldwide.

Applicants must be currently enrolled as an undergraduate, graduate or post-graduate student at a university or college program in the design, architecture, landscape, urbanism, engineering, economic, geography, or environmental fields. Students may enter as individuals or in teams of up to four.

We will select three finalists and send them to New York City to present their schemes before an internationally renowned jury at the Center for Architecture. The jury will select a winning team and distribute a US$15,000 pot of prize money at their discretion. AECOM will donate US$25,000 in cash and/or in-kind technical assistance to advance implementation of the winning proposal.

Tongji University is pleased to invite talented full-time university students to attend the “2014 International Students Conference on Environment and Sustainability,” which will be held at Tongji University, Shanghai, China, from June 5 to June 10, 2014.

Supported by the UNEP and Tongji University, the “International Students Conference on Environment and Sustainability (ISCES)” had been successfully held in the last three years. Around 950 students from more than 50 countries took part in the conference, exchanged understanding and ideas on topics relevant to environment and sustainable development and issued “Global Youth Tongji Declaration.” These conferences made great contributions to the spread of concepts and practices of environment and sustainability among university students.

Participants: Full time university students (including undergraduate and post-graduate students).

Deadlines: the applicants should register online before April 30 (http://unep-iesd.tongji.edu.cn/index.php?classid=875), fill in the resume form (in English) and upload their posters to the website above before April 25. We will announce the selected participants by May 15 and issue invitation letters afterwards.

No registration fee will be charged and Organizers will cover the local accommodation, and transportation during the conference in Shanghai. Field trips will also be provided by the organizer. A limited number of scholarships (round-trip flight tickets) will be offered to competitive participants. For more information, please check the official website of ISCES 2014: http://unep-iesd.tongji.edu.cn/index.php?classid=875 ，or contact:

Organizing Committee of 2014 International Student Conference on Environment and Sustainability

The Infrastructure Sustainability Council of Australia (ISCA) is currently upgrading its website and one of the upgraded elements is to incorporate a Knowledge Hub of references suitable for practitioners. There is currently a short term need for assistance to help with the uploading/linking of documents in the Knowledge Hub, an opportunity that would be suitable for a potential inquisitive student. While being somewhat basic task, the student would certainly get exposure to the IS rating tool and some great references as part of this experience.
It is needed someone available to help for 2-3 days over the next two weeks.

If you are interested, please send an email to Rick Walters, Technical Director at ISCA: rwalters@isca.org.auhttp://www.isca.org.au

Better Buildings Partnership (BBP) is offering internship opportunities in specific projects to give students from the Master in Sustainable Development – UNSW ownership and focus on practical work-streams in the following areas:

– Waste from Fitout – The BBP recognises a large amount of waste currently goes to landfill from churn of tenancy fitouts. We have commissioned research on the most wasteful materials and what potential futures they could have (reusing, recycling or upcycling) before landfill, and are conducting trials on matching social enterprise with market-creators in this space. We are keen to have a student passionate about materials, interior design, and with a bit of an engineering/architecture twist to champion this stream. In the next year we are looking to run a design competition for finding the best and most market-ready opportunities for high-impact materials and continuing trials to prove best practice.

– Data and Trends – The BBP captures raw consumption data (emissions, energy, waste, water) and building attributes (age, size, ratings, value, etc) for over 2.5 million sqm of space in the Sydney CBD. This data is used for trending and analysis, league tables and targeted research on the value of buildings and performance. We would like a data-hungry student who knows systems like Microsoft Excel very well and can identify and understand trends in large tracts of data.

– Operational Waste – BBP members spend large amounts on waste leaving their buildings for recycling and landfill, with very limited controls and best practice observed by contractors and building managers. A large piece of work will be completing outlining best contracts, grading of waste practices and conversions from densities to weights for reporting purposes. Alongside finalization of this work, we will begin to embed the learning and outputs into industry practice (training courses, presentations, written articles, case studies) and would like someone keen on learning how to influence industry with new tools.

Anyone looking for work experience and interested in volunteering some time with exposure to a highly commercial, council, and industry setting please contact Ben Thomas (an alumnus himself of Sustainable Development program) noting what project you are keen to champion and what piques your interest about it. Please attach a copy of your CV.